5 BATMAN: The Bloody Knight
by Dan Bivens
Summary: How will Batman and Superman cope with a villain who was an actual bloodsucking fiend under whose spell Lois Lane falls as well? Read after THE BIZARRE KNIGHT
1. Chapter 1

**THE BLOODY KNIGHT**

Chapter 1

The moon, once again, was voluminously full.

The night skies of Gotham City were uncharacteristically clear.

A perfect evening for…murder.

A single lady by the name of Lorelei Adelphia, who was essentially a simple person of commonality with an unremarkable life, just one of the millions living and working within downtown Gotham, would, on this fateful night, be forcefully transformed into a cliché…a Creature of the Night.

As she listened to the sounds of the city, a city that was always active, no matter what time of the day or night, mingling with the almost musical clip-clopping of her own designer-shoed feet as she walked along the always crowded sidewalk in weary route to her apartment complex/high-rise, a new sound mixed with the rest.

A curious screeching that seemed somehow as extant as all the rest assaulting her ears. A screeching that, somehow, seemed to be following her. Naturally, Lorelei looked all about her for the indisputable source of the curious sound…but saw nothing unusual.

Shrugging it off as just one more quirky curiosity of the city, Lorelei walked on while ignoring the strange screeching seemingly following along after.

Such would prove a sanguinary mistake.

As Lorelei reached the unbreakable glass doors guarding the entrance to her high-rise apartment complex, requiring not a key of metal but of plastic, pre-programmed especially for a single tenant's entry via a more or less common keycard reader, the screeching suddenly stopped.

Even though the only reflection in the front entrance was her own, that seemingly psychic part of the human mind seemed to sense a second presence. So, slowly, she turned to see…

"Good evening, Ms. Adelphia," the Euro-accented voice said even before the lovely lady, keycard clutched tightly in well-manicured fingers, gradually gawked at this undeniable apparition.

Standing in the semi-darkness, suddenly devoid of nighttime pedestrians, directly before the facing side of her high-rise residence, was someone dressed, head to feet, in a blood red robe with matching head-covering hood with the only sign of a symbol being a centuries-old skull-and-crossbones just above and between the perfectly placed eyeholes.

Clearly not your typical passer-by usually seen on the sidewalks of Gotham.

"Wh-who…wh-what…?" she stammered as her instincts told her to run away, yet finding herself hypnotically held where she stood.

"I have picked you, Lorelei Adelphia," said the red robed/hooded mystery man with the indefinably foreign-sounding accent that made the precise pronunciation of her name seem, somehow, important. And "important" was the one thing she had never felt before.

She should've screamed, but she couldn't. And the red-robed stranger gradually closed upon her in an indescribably lissome fashion. All she could do was stare into those mesmerizing eyes peering out from the well-placed eyeholes within the hood brandishing the skull-and-crossbones symbol.

"Wh-what d-do y-you w-want?"

"Your blood."

Having said that, drawing out the word "blood" longer than normal and, therefore, making such sound somehow justifiable, the taller red-robed individual, definitely a man, slowly lifted his hood and…

"Eeeeeiiiiiii!"

Flashing light-bars painted the area in reds and blues as yellow tape kept crowds of lookee-loos at a predetermined distance, while overcoat-wearing plainclothes police detectives, along with uniformed officers, stood mutely about the heinous scene.

Was it really any wonder that the Dark Knight could and would literally drop in on the same site of murder-most-foul?

Commissioner James Gordon, himself, showed along with his best homicide detectives, such as Harvey Bullock, as well as his best in uniformed police, such as Sgt. Renee Montoya, once word of the singular site of an absolutely ensanguined individual, a once lovely lady by the name of Lorelei Adelphia, who now lay…

"Drained of blood," said Commissioner Gordon with a mystified shake of his white-haired head. "I've never seen anything like this in all the years I've been in law enforcement."

"What about forensics?" asked the husky voice so readily identifiable as belonging to the Batman as he stood to one side with his long bat-like cape draped over muscularly athletic shape with his cowled head held so hidden eyes could take in the extraordinary spectacle. "Did they find anything?"

"No," heavily sighed Gordon, more than a little bit bothered by that seemingly impossible certitude. "Nothing to show that anyone even walked into the area behind the woman…nothing to show that the killer left. Curious. Very Curious."

"What about witnesses?" pressed the Cowled Crusader of the Night. "Isn't this usually one of the more well-traveled walkways?"

"Yes," said the Commissioner, again sighing heavily. "I can't explain it…no one saw anything. It's almost as if the killer was 'invisible'…or that everyone else was, in some impossible manner, hypnotized."

"Doesn't seem likely," Batman said as he slowly squatted to get a better look at the bloodless body. "And it also doesn't sound like any of the usual sickos that frequent the night in Gotham. Not even Victor Zsasz would be this vicious. Besides, last I checked, he was still locked up at Arkham Asylum…along with the rest of the worst of the worst."

It was just then that Batman took notice of something already detected by the less costumed police…most especially by Commissioner James Gordon.

"Yeah," Gordon groaned, "we saw that, too. What do you make of it?"

"Looks like some sort of animal bite," said Batman abstractedly as the eyes within the cowl narrowed. "If I had to guess…I'd say it was…a bat. But…"

"It'd have to be a very big bat," finished Gordon. "Moreover…what kind of bat, even an unusually large one, could…"

"Drain a person of all their blood?" the Dark Knight now finished, as if he and the Commissioner were somehow sharing a certain amount of actual thought. "I'll go back to the Batcave and use my computers to search for any other instances of such deaths…especially those with uncommonly large bat bites. I'll be in touch, Jim."

Even as the Police Commissioner, who'd been Batman's staunchest supporter even when Gotham City politicians protested the Caped Crimefighter's vigilante involvement with what, in their naïve view, should be strictly a police situation, responded…

"Damn."

The Dark Knight had disappeared into the darkness as quickly and quietly as he had arrived, no doubt with his turbo-engine Batmobile left several city blocks away so as not to be heard coming or going. Clearly utilizing his famous Batarang and grapple-line to climb/swing away.

It was at that exact instant that the coroner's workers, long after the coroner himself had stopped by the strange site of bloodless homicide, in order to tag-and-bag the dead body and, then, to drive it to Gotham's pathology lab for an intensive autopsy.

Not that such would reveal much more than the Batman's Batcave computers in regards to the Who and the How of the sinister situation.

Standing atop a nearby building, two dozen stories above the body's bloodless locality, just as the no longer living Lorelei Adelphia was being driven away, was the red robed-and-hooded source of such curious discussion.

"It is now time for you to rise, Lorelei," the mysterious man in identity-hiding red robe said with the self-same Euro-accented voice with a certainty of purpose. "Rise as one of my brides. Rise…and feed. So commands…the Monk."

At that same moment, in the dreary rear of the coroner's vehicle carrying the body-bagged victim of total bloodletting, a supposedly dead Lorelei unzipped said black bag and rapidly arose into a stiffly seated position. Her skin the colorless hue of ash. Her bloodless lips pulled back to reveal vampiric fangs instead of ordinary canines.

Fangs to be used on the unsuspecting men employed by the coroner's office of Gotham City. Victims to provide ready food for…the undead.

"Eeeeeiiiiiii!"

END OF CHAPTER 1


	2. Chapter 2

**THE BLOODY KNIGHT**

Chapter 2

Batman had been sitting before his Batcave computers, supercomputers really, ever since his rapid return via the Batmobile, its turbo-engine thrusting out tongues of flame from its cylindrical rear, frantically running specific searches for the very same murder M.O.s such as had happened in Gotham City a short time earlier.

He was shocked to see that several had taken place not in Gotham, but in surrounding cosmopolitan municipalities within a thousand kilometer radius which included, not completely unexpectedly, Metropolis. Which caused the Caped Crusader, his cowl customarily removed from the handsome head and face of Bruce Wayne, billionaire, for a determinate amount of comfort, to puzzle aloud…

"I wonder why Superman hasn't tried to contact me."

"In point of fact, sir, he did," the properly lilting British-accented voice of none-other-than Alfred Pennyworth, gentlemen's gentlemen as well as a laundry list of other occupational appointments in direct correlation to the Cowled One. "I would have contacted you via your Bat-cell, however…"

Before Batman could hear the exculpatory excuse, the Bat-wave signaled a second situation in his city that, curiously, occurred exactly four blocks from the site of Gotham's first ensanguined young woman.

Quickly pulling his bat-eared cowl completely over his head and half his face, while simultaneously standing, his suddenly husky voice belonging only to the Batman, said, "I'm surprised such a curious crime has occurred so close…and so soon…as the first. Alfred…we'll discuss your reason for foregoing proper protocol…later."

"I look forward to it, sir," said Alfred with an affectation and tone of British sarcasm, even as the Caped Crimefighter swooped from supercomputer to Batmobile before firing up its turbo-engine in order to swiftly squeal away amidst the expected burst of flame from its bat-like back. "Godspeed, Master Bruce."

Even as Alfred turned smartly to proceed up from obsidian Batcave to stately mansion, he couldn't help but recall the curious request of the Man of Steel when attempting to make scrambled contact via special phone to Batman to be taken, instead, by the multitasking English butler of a billionaire-cum-costumed crimefighter…

"Are you absolutely certain," Alfred had said via special phone link to Superman, whom the stogy steward had absolutely no inclination was also Clark Kent, award-winning reporter for The Daily Planet. "I'm sure Batman would be more than interested in the fact the exact same curious killings have occurred in your…"

"No, Alfred," interjected the unmistakably strong voice of the Man of Steel from his end of the super-secured phone line, more than a little unmistakable emotion, clearly encompassing something especially personal about the heinous situation that so absorbed the Last Son of Krypton. "Thank you…but I must handle this myself. I just hope that…"

The voice of Superman unexpectedly trailed off and Alfred, having been directly involved with such moody emotions in regards to the Cowled One that he had served for more years than he cared to count, let it lay.

While Batman was hurtling toward the exact sight of two murdered coroner workers and one mysteriously missing dead body…

Superman soared at super-speed from one cosmopolitan corner of Metropolis to the other, not just in search, using super-vision, for the maliciously murdered victims, who then seemed to be disappearing one after the other, from the self-same bloodless death as had occurred, thrice now, in relatively remote Gotham City, but, more personally important to the Man of Steel, desperately seeking a certain missing colleague and love of his uniquely dual life…Lois Lane.

The last Superman had known in regards to Lois' locality, she had been aggressively seeking leads linked with one of the bloodlessly murdered individuals, a young man by the name of Alistair Castle who'd been delivering deep-dish pizzas which was his way of paying his steep tuition through one of Metropolis' ivy league colleges. A young man with a potentially illustrious future had he not be bitten by some unspeakable something and completely depleted of liquid life.

Just the thing to garner any good reporter's attention, much less an award winner like Lois Lane. Though Superman assumed, should she need assistance, Lois would've certainly let out a yell for help as she'd done on an endless number of other occasions, even as the Man of Steel was busying himself with these strange homicides while attempting to track down the culprit or culprits.

Curiously, Lois Lane seemingly vanished without a trace…so much so that Superman's singular super-powers was incapable of find a single solitary clue. Though it seemed somewhat reasonable to send for the Dark Knight Detective to assist in such a personal search, the Last Son of Krypton knew that his cowl-and-caped colleague would be too tied up in a non-super-powered search for answers in his own city.

Besides, Batman would undoubtedly believe Superman's situation to be a little too personal compared to such a mysterious murderer somehow sweeping through more than a single city in a single night to be concerned about one lone lady reporter known for getting herself embroiled in such adversity.

Still, Superman might inevitably need to beseech Batman's special assistance…whether he wanted to or not.

"I hate to say it, Batman," said Commissioner James Gordon, out on a homicidal scene for the second time in the same night a scant four blocks from the first. "But…"

"You don't have to, Jim," said the Caped Crusader tensely while looking over the two blood-drained bodies stretched out on the street next to the crashed coroner's vehicle. "Same unusual bites on the necks. Same complete loss of blood."

"Not to mention," Detective Harvey Bullock snarled while scratching the stubble on his fleshy face, "the fact the dead body these two were transportin' ain't nowhere to be seen. It's like she just got up and walked away."

"Or worse," Batman added almost under his breath as his ingenuously intelligent mind immediately began thinking outside the box for the first time since this strange situation presented itself in his city.

"What do you mean?" asked Gordon with a glare while readjusting his glasses even as Bullock squinted in the Caped Crusader's direction as well.

"I'd rather not say," the Dark Knight said simply, "until I've done a little more investigating on my own. I'll check in later, Commissioner, after a thorough autopsy's been completed on these two."

With that, Batman hurled his Batarang with trailing line and, with the practiced expertise of a one-of-a-kind acrobatic crimefighter and swiftly swung away to disappear into the darkness.

Detective Bullock bemoaned, "I don't know why we need that nutcase, Commissioner. We're just as capable of…"

"I'd have to disagree with you, Detective," said Sgt. Renee Montoya in a tone of impersonalized insult on behalf of the Batman. "I've seen that man in the blue-gray costume do a hell of a lot of good…especially when we're dealing with not-so-normal criminals. If you ask me…we're lucky as hell to have him."

"Hmpf," scoffed Bullock before returning his attention to diligent detecting pertaining to two dead bodies drained of blood and one dead body that'd disappeared. In his assiduously pedestrian opinion, every seemingly senseless killing had an inevitably logical solution.

And, as far as Detective Bullock believed, no Batman was even needed.

At that very same moment, situated in a secretly purchased, through dummy corporate creations fronted by those in expensive suits acting upon post-hypnotic suggestions too strong to ignore…

"You have done well my bride," said the Euro-accented man called the Monk to not only the now undead blood-drinking Lorelei Adelphia, "as have you all…my extended family now that I am here…in this new nation. New…to me. You have all undergone your necessary passage from the light of the living to the dark of the dead. Just as hundreds have done before in more foreign lands. From more distant times."

Standing about the mysterious Monk in red, formerly murdered, drained-of-blood individuals, male and female alike, stood mutely before a monstrous master. Someone who had visited upon these what he had visited upon victims throughout the long stretch of time in numerous other nations making up the Old World. Even the inscrutable Oriental World. Or the World of the still-mysterious Middle East.

Though his face was so hideous as to be hidden beneath the red hood bearing the simplistic symbol of the skull-and-crossbones above and between perfectly aligned holes over mesmerizing eyes, the Monk continued to command the utmost in timeless respect from all who had fallen to his fatal "kiss".

In fact, of the growing group of fanged followers from the Eastern side of the United States, currently encompassing him, only one had not yet been drained to join the horde of the undead. Only one held the unparalleled pulchritude of a well-established beauty. A lovely lady whose peerless soul became his solitary light within his endless dark.

And the name of this dark-haired, blue-eyed beauty who'd so captivated the monstrous Monk …

"Lois Lane," slowly said the Monk almost musically like a human man mired in Love. "Only she shall be my bride supreme. But not as callously as some of you…no. Her spiritless transformation shall be the culmination of a sumptuous celebration attended by the undead. My undead. So, my children of the night…my subordinate brides…seek out your own bloody banquets this eventful eve. Turn them into the same mindless members of my ever-growing progenitors of soulless resurrection. Then and only then…shall Lois Lane become mine for all time. Haaa ha ha hahahahaha!"

Standing stiff and silent, her enchanting eyes wide with the hypnotic stare of someone whose will had been brought under the complete control of the vampire master dressed all in red. From hooded head to robed body. Only simultaneously ageless and aged hands were discernible from the bell-like sleeves of said red robe.

Unlike the rest, all currently as undead and bloodthirsty as their repulsive leader, Lois had yet to have her hypnotic eyes to fall upon the monstrous countenance beneath the blood-red hood.

And she would not see such until…

Batman stood astride the top of a centralized building overlooking the two blood-draining locations, thus far this sinister night, within the immensity of Gotham City. Watching and waiting.

Waiting for the return of whatever was responsible for…what?

The Caped and Cowled Crimefighter couldn't help but semi-silently consider, "None of this makes any sense. If these are, indeed, the misdeeds of some strange nocturnal mass-murderer who needed to, by some means as yet unknown, drain away all the blood of his victims…utilizing some methodology that left two teeth-like punctures within their necks…then what happened to the corpse of his first ensanguined attack? Did he steal the body after killing, in the exact same manner, the two workers for the coroner's office? If so…for what reason? Nothing about this curious case…"

"Makes any sense," a voice said aloud what the Dark Knight was mentally musing, which caused a not-at-all surprised Caped Crusader to half-turn toward…

"So, Superman, have you added telepathy to your repertoire of super-powers?" Batman half-asked of the Man of Steel standing some six feet behind him on the self-same high-rise rooftop. Both of their capes, one indigo-blue and the other bright red, billowing in the wind whistling about their two striking shapes.

"Not exactly," said Superman as he slowly strode toward the colleague in cape-and-cowl. "I've just gotten to known how you think. Especially when faced with something so…"

"Yes," said the man in blue-gray after that pregnant pause in spoken response from the man in blue-red. "Something so decidedly…strange. Why have you come? Alfred didn't…"

"No," swiftly said Superman with a shallow shake of his head, his handsome face seemingly set in stone. "No, Batman…Bruce…I've just decided that, like it or not, I have need of your unique skills."

"Well," heaved the Dark Knight knowingly, "since my investigations have discovered that lots of other cities, including Metropolis, have had exactly the same murders so far, and since you had not requested my non-super assistance earlier. I can only deduce…"

Now turning fully to stare into the true-blue eyes of the square-jawed Kryptonian, Batman, his own exposed square-jawed, from the cowled mask hiding a billionaires equally handsome face, forming a friendly half-smile, the Dark Knight finally finished his statement of understood truth.

"Something strange has happened to Lois Lane."

END OF CHAPTER 2


	3. Chapter 3

**THE BLOODY KNIGHT**

Chapter 3/Conclusion

Commissioner James Gordon was aghast at how fast such viciously malevolent blood-draining murders had multiplied throughout not only Gotham City, but, so he understood, Metropolis as well as dozens of other cosmopolitan centers within a thousand-mile radius. Pretty much the entire Upper East Coast…and probably well beyond.

Currently riding along with the gruff yet proficient Detective Harvey Bullock, the two raced alongside black-and-whites, one of which had the equally extraordinary and frequently decorated uniformed officer, Sgt. Renee Montoya, lights flashing and sirens screaming, as they all raced to yet another of what was quickly becoming an eerie epidemic. Previously murdered by blood-draining, via big bat-like bites, were now doing the exact same thing to formerly full-blooded Gothamites who were all set upon like blindly led lambs to the proverbial slaughter.

And, still, the Commissioner had absolutely no solid leads as to the precise cause of such sanguinary assaults. Nothing.

But had Commissioner Gordon known the unutterable fact, would he have been capable of believing? For who could accept the centralized reason was wearing a red rob-and- hood?

At the moment, not even two costumed crimefighters, one in blue-red with powers far beyond those of mortal man. The other in blue-gray relying upon special protective padding as well as devices and detective talents, both of which were far above and beyond anything known to the more mundane upholders of the law.

Superman and Batman. The World's Finest.

One was, at present, soaring above the streets of Gotham, while the other drove directly through them in the familiar to all, and frightening to some, obsidian Batmobile.

One not only looking to halt the seditious spread of blood-draining death, but looking to learn the location of Lois Lane…his one and only love. While the other's concern centered upon rooting out the curious source and, if necessary, destroying it utterly.

"Batman to Superman," said the Caped Crusader in the cockpit of his unique car, currently careening at high velocity through the heart of Gotham City, by way of the wireless being used to speak with the Man of Steel, "what can you see with those super-eyes of yours?"

Responding via a wireless secretively inserted in one of Superman's ears, the Last Son of Krypton said, "The same as before, Batman. More and more supposedly dead individuals, killed this very night, looking to attack and bite normal people not yet locked within their homes. There can no longer be any doubt…we're definitely dealing with…vampires."

Though the very word rankled the logic by which both Batman and Bruce Wayne, the billionaire beneath the cape-and-cowl, had so precariously clung since the gunning down of his parents before his young eyes, the Dark Knight also could no longer deny the undeniable.

In the split-second it would take for the Caped Crimefighter to respond via wireless to the high-flying Man of Steel, the events of this past night swept past cowl-covered eyes…

Starting with one, then two, then four, and more, acts of attacks resulting in the depletion of blood spreading rapidly through the surrounding sections of Gotham more so than anticipated by the duo that was, for the moment, Batman and Superman.

Not because the two had trouble combining their diametrically opposed approaches to the protection of the innocent. Superman being more the supreme upholder of true justice with an absence of malice no ordinary man could scarcely bring themselves to properly implement against voracious villainy. Batman more the avenging angel who was willing to wholly obliterate evildoers in order to halt the horrors haunting this night.

One not willing to take any life, even the nefarious. The other not only willing, but capable of bringing such destructive action.

Just because the Batman had, to date, brought super-criminals like Penguin, Riddler, Two-Face, and, last, but seldom least, the Joker in to reside inside quad-locked padded detention cells within a recently renovated, thanks to Superman, Arkham Asylum, certainly didn't abrogate the Dark Knight detective of an always present penchant for destroying anyone, or anything, deemed as evil.

Superman's current state of mind, especially as it pertained to Lois Lane, clearly in the bloody clutches of a vampiric force responsible for a swiftly spreading disease of undead, was exactly the reason Batman only allowed Bruce Wayne to be the playboy society expected him to be, while drawing the proverbial line at becoming enamored with any one woman.

Of course, there were those whom Bruce Wayne had, in his complicated past, dared to dream of as potential mates…Julie Madison, Linda Page, Vicki Vale, Patricia Powell, to name four…only to have reality suddenly plant a size 16 boot straight into his…

"Superman to Batman," the Man of Steel's voice suddenly said via wireless which instantly, thankfully, shook the brooding Batman out of his self-suffering reverie.

"Batman here," said the Caped Crusader from the speeding black Batmobile, "what have you got?"

Superman, still soaring overhead at roughly the same swift velocity as the turbo-engine thrust-powered bat-like car careening around nighttime traffic, used his X-ray and telescopic vision to make absolutely certain of what had caught his true blue eyes before responding via the wireless in one ear.

"Two blocks ahead, to the right…I see a vampire attempting to attack a, so far, normal Gothamite!"

"Understood," said Batman's transmitted voice, even though Superman's super-hearing could've easily understood without the wireless link. "You go on ahead, Superman. I'll get there right after. I've got something to…check out first."

Check out first? the Last Son of Krypton considered within the privacy of his thoughts as he tried to understand what could possibly take precedent over stopping a murder-in-progress. Even if that murder was being perpetrated by a blood-drinking drone of some more powerful vampiric force. I sure hope you know what you're doing, Bruce…or else Lois might pay for any delays…with her life. And I could never forgive you for that.

Turning on the super-speed with a will which pretty much made the Man of Steel just shy of being an actual god, Superman zipped around a building exactly two city blocks away in order to seemingly materialize between a trembling out-of-breath would-be victim and the fanged, ashen-hued vampire drone doing the bidding of a much more supreme bloodsucker.

"Gyaaaahhhh!"

That shriek of sudden rage issued forth from the vampiric victim from what would've been yet another blood-drained prey and so on and so forth through multiple permutations involving Gotham, Metropolis, and other distant cities.

"Don't worry, I won't let him harm you," Superman said to the still terrified target of nocturnal attack without turning from the monstrosity standing just outside of striking range. If such mattered to a Superman…or to a recently sired bloodsucking vampire.

"Monk is master," snarled the mesmerized soldier-of-death. "Monk makes us strong. Monk makes us stronger…than you!"

With that, the wild-eyed, fang-brandishing basilisk lashed out and roughly grabbed the muscle-bound Superman in ridiculously skinny arms that exhibited a super-strength rivaling the Kryptonian in blue-red. Hurling him hard enough to burst through the across-the-street storefront's concrete-covered front as if it were made of mere cardboard.

"Superman…must…die!" wildly yelled the emaciated man who, scant hours earlier, had been a real living individual. One with a will of his own. A mind of his own. And now…

Superman had no sooner stood up from where he'd been violently tossed, just inside the shattered storefront of thick brick, with just a hint of pain in the broad of his caped back, than the vampire responsible for the impossible act rushed in to finish what he'd started.

The intended target of the fang-biting, blood-drinking, bastardized Creature of the Night could do naught but watch wide-eyed as the highly unlikely took place less than a hundred yards away.

A super-blow from a surprisingly slender, and definitely undead, attacker staggered the Man of Steel as Superman countered with super-blows of his own…but neither seemed strong enough to put the other down for the count.

"This is nuts," said the curious citizen as he finally fought off the urge to continue watching and rushed for the safety of brighter illuminated main streets, not to mention the approach of singing police sirens.

Leaving behind, now outside, where super-blows had sent both a minute later, Superman stood toe-to-toe with the much smaller man, who'd obviously been indoctrinated into the domain of the undead by…the Monk.

"Tell me where 'the Monk' is," said Superman between bomb-like blows delivered by invulnerable Fists of Steel. "Or, I swear, I'll rip you limb from lifeless limb! Then I'll bludgeon you with your own damned arms! Now where is he?"

"None can harm the Monk…he is our master! The master," said the lanky blood-drinker as he redoubled his super-strong attempts to destroy Superman. No doubt in order to curry favor with the undead in red. "You must die!"

"You know," said the Last Son of Krypton while allowing his supernatural assailant to pummel him, enduring the sudden rise of actual pain, "super-strength isn't the only power at my disposal."

"Yiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"

Though it went against the grain for the remarkably moral Man of Steel, Superman's suddenly unleashed heat vision had quickly cremated the monstrosity using preternatural super-strength against the man in blue, red, and yellow.

"Rest in peace," muttered Superman, mostly to himself, as he shoved aside any sign of self-recrimination in order to shift his super-vision from heat to X-ray/telescopic in hopes of finding…

"Lois?"

Superman streaked away too fast for even Batman's night vision/infrared capable contrivances, from one or more Bat-belt compartments, to even see, then…

"Lois! Thank God! I was so worried when…"

"The Monk," said the wide-eyed, hypnotically entranced lady reporter to the just landed Man of Steel, "wishes me to give you this…gift."

Before there was time to let potential danger register within his usually swift super-mind, Superman's greatest source of weakness was forced upon him in the opening right hand of the woman he loved so completely.

"L-Lois…K-Kryptonite…?"

Dropping to one knee, then the other, Superman shook helplessly and perspired profusely like a mere Human thrust into the midst of some feverish affliction for which there was no cure. Pain-racked and bone-weary in the span of seconds. A few more moments of unprotected exposure and the Man of Steel would become the Corpse of Steel.

"That's it, my dear," said the heavily Euro-accented voice belonging to the red-robed/hooded Monk as he seemingly solidified out of night-shadow. "Hold it closer…closer. I want Superman to be at the very edge of death…whereupon I shall grant him true immortality…as a member of my legion of undead."

"Not if I can help it, Monk!"

The husky voice caused the red-robed/hooded blood-drinker to spin in its direction with genuine surprise, as he promptly replied, "So…you really are as stealthy as street-rumor suggests…Batman."

"I'm a lot more than that," said the Dark Knight dangerously, "I'm the man who's going to bring you down. Unless…"

"Unless…what?" rhetorically asked the covered, from head-to-feet, Monk as he slowly approached the blue-gray figure standing tall and firm a few feet away, even as Superman collapsed completely because of continued Green Kryptonite exposure, thanks to the still-entranced Lois Lane. "I am no mortal criminal to be vanquished by fists or ingenious antipersonnel devices. I am…immortal. I am…"

"A vampire," finished the Caped Crusader with certainty in his hissed tone. "I get it, Monk. I also get that there are, indeed, items that can defeat you. Items I do not, normally, carry in my Bat-belt. Until now."

Even as sudden realization seized the hooded-and-robed self-proclaimed "master", Batman brought forth, from beneath his dark cape, two items tightly held in each Bat-gloved hand. One, a vial of holy water…the other, a Christian cross.

"Noooooooo!"

So screamed the Monk even as the Batman sent sprinkles of blessed water in the undead demon's direction, causing him to react with a greater agony than the Green Kryptonite caused for Superman, now prone before Lois.

Who, by the way, was barely clinging to life when, suddenly, Lois snapped out of her hypnotic trance and noticed…

"Superman? What in…? Kryptonite!"

Hurling the glowing green rock fragment from a long-gone distant planet, as far away as the stronger-than-expected lady reporter could, the love of the Man of Steel's life, and vice versa, squatted next to the Man of Steel's shivering side, "It'll be okay now, Superman. It'll be okay."

More holy water was determinedly dispersed to cause an ever-increasing agonized reaction to occur within the unseen, due to red hood and rob, Monk, now fully fallen onto his back while he writhed piteously at the Caped Crusader's Bat-booted feet.

"If my research into vampire lore is correct, Monk," said Batman triumphantly, "these two religious items will make you just weak enough…", then, after placing said cross onto the chest of the still-writhing Master of the Undead, continued, "…so that the less-religious, mostly-scientific items I do carry in my Bat-belt can…"

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the Monk burst into a foul mist that swiftly dissipated then and there, allowing the sacred, to most except the Batman, crucifix clattered onto the ground.

Swiftly stepping back, his cowl-covered eyes narrowing in order to take note of any potential re-materialization of the Monk anywhere within the darkness choking the surrounding streets of Gotham City, Batman said loudly, "Superman…anything?"

Recovered enough for his super-vision to be put to use, the Last Son of Krypton scanned, via X-ray and telescopic capabilities, the entirety of the vast city, then said, "Nothing, Batman. In fact…those formerly undead are now dead once again. It would seem…Gotham is safe."

Safe, harshly thought the Cowled One with a hint of sickened sarcasm, aside from the fact that the Monk caused dozens to die this very night.

"On our way back to Metropolis," said Lois even as Superman swooped her up into his muscular arms, "I have a feeling you'll be giving me an exclusive."

Smiling warmly, scant seconds before lifting off to launch them both into the dark night, Superman said, "Whatever you want, Lois," and, then, to the Dark Knight, "Thanks, Batman…I knew if anyone could stop the Monk…you could."

Even as Superman soared, at a safe speed so as not to inflict friction-induced damage to the beautiful lady lovingly held so snuggly against his "S"-emblazoned chest, Batman slipped the remaining holy water in its vial into an empty compartment of his yellow Bat-belt.

As to the sizeable crucifix, he shoved that just behind the Bat-belt's buckle in much the same fashion as a gunslinger might do with his hand-cannon.

"Just in case," said the Caped Crimefighter to himself as narrowed-within-dark cowl eyes scanned the dark sky, still dominated by the voluminous full moon, before Batarang-and-line swinging away from the scene.

END


End file.
